1. Field
This application relates to a novel method and device to provide a perceivable relief from the weight on the right thumb of a player of a woodwind musical instrument that does not have a curved neck near the mouthpiece.
2. Prior Art
A particular group of reed woodwind musical instruments characterized by the oboe, clarinet, oboe d'amore, English horn, basset clarinet and straight soprano saxophone are small enough to be made essentially rectilinear from one end to the other. However, due to the intricate amount of key work, the weight of these instruments in playing position is usually greater than the amount that occurred in their primitive ancestors. In present-day forms, they are all made with a conventional thumbrest located on each instrument at a location that approximately allows the right-hand thumb of the player to support the instrument while allowing the other fingers of the right hand to manipulate the different keys or tone holes of the instrument in playing. The left-hand thumb in playing these instruments is assigned the task of acting on at least one key that produces the higher-register notes in combination with the action of the other fingers of both hands. Thus, the left-hand thumb provides practically none of the support against the weight of the instruments, because its position on the instruments is completely away from the center of gravity of the instruments in the usual playing positions. The left-hand thumb initiates the instruments into playing position. In addition, it assists the player's embouchure, defined in the art as the formation of the player's lips and teeth around the mouthpiece of the instruments, thus stabilizing the instruments during playing. It is well known to any player that balancing one of these instruments with the delicate embouchure and the fingers of both hands against the weight of the instrument requires a great amount of skill to be acquired through hours of practice and constantly increasing pain in the right-hand thumb that has to support the majority of the weight of the instrument.
Further analysis reveals that the player's embouchure cannot contribute generally to support the weight of the instrument because it is far away in all usual playing positions from the center of gravity of the instrument. Practically the total weight of an instrument in this particular group during playing is supported by the thumb of the player's right hand. Consequently, with just a conventional thumbrest on an instrument of the group, considerable strain in the right hand and its thumb is felt by the professional, amateur or student musician players, during prolonged musical performances or practice sessions. The strain may become so unbearable that it hinders the ability to play the instrument. Continuous strain can cause severe repetitive-strain syndrome in the right wrist and known to have compromised or terminated promising musical careers or cause considerable frustration of many players who are unable to produce the unique musical sounds that they aspire for themselves in playing one of these instruments.
One of the most obvious and successful methods of relieving the weight of any woodwind musical instrument in playing position is to use a supporting strap. One way is to anchor the strap comfortably around the neck. Another way is to wear the strap around the back on one or both shoulders such as found on a class of very heavy bassoons, contra-bassoons, bass clarinets or saxophones of any size with a pronouncedly curved neck near the mouthpiece. These successful straps include a hook which fits through a ring integrally formed on the thumbrest of this class of instruments. The length of the straps is adjustable into a fixed amount by each experienced individual player before playing and would not need any further adjustment during playing. However, when these successful straps are similarly designed into straps for the group of instruments characterized by an oboe and a clarinet, these latter straps are known to be rejected by any experienced player as not helpful at all, and even considered dangerous. The cause of this peculiar poor performance becomes obvious when the players have had the time or a chance to evaluate these latter straps with some engineering analysis. The cause of success of the straps of the group characterized by the bassoons and saxophones with a curved neck is that the mouthpiece on all of these instruments is oriented in a way that when a strap's length is properly adjusted by an experienced player for the proper angle or any other angle of playing, the right thumb of the player just has to push the thumbrest away from the player's body to reduce the pressure of the weight on the right thumb. Because of the strap, these curved-neck instruments can only move the mouthpiece up in an arc in front of the player and into the player's embouchure more or less precisely for playing but not haphazardly to the point of jamming the reed into the player's lips or teeth in an unexpectedly constrained manner.
Observing the success of this group of straps leads to the understanding of the real cause of poor performance of the straps designed for the group characterized by the oboes and clarinets: that is, the lack of a curved neck near the mouthpiece on these instruments. Regardless of being adjusted by an experienced or novice player, when the fixed length of the strap of this group of instruments is determined, the weight relief on the right thumb is perceived only through a definite small arc described by the thumbrest around one point on the back of the neck of the player with the radius defined by the already-fixed length of the strap. The only way to continue to perceive the weight relief on the right thumb and to suitably position the instrument mouthpiece to the player's embouchure is governed by two constraints. First, move the thumbrest so that it would be at the maximum distance from the back of the player's neck determined by the already-fixed length of the strap. Next, make the angle of the straight body of the instrument and the straight line formed by the strap between the back of the player's neck and the thumbrest to be the same angle that was chosen during the preliminary adjustment of the strap. It can be appreciated that satisfying both of these constraints at the beginning and during playing one of these instruments with the correct embouchure is very difficult and exasperating. Moreover, one can imagine intuitively that satisfying strictly the first constraint while not satisfying the second can lead easily to the danger of jamming the reed into the player's lips or teeth accidentally with regrettable consequences.
To counter the detrimental effect of the weight of the instruments on the playing, prior art pointed to some solutions. A few embodiments concentrate on providing maximum comfort in the thumbrest by way of suitable cushioning or ergonometrically orienting the right-hand thumb in playing position. These embodiments are found in U.S. Pat. No. 2,803,983 to Dowling, No. 2,847,892 to Laas et al, No. 2,933,968 to Hearne, Jr, No. 3,988,958 to Brunkow, and No. 4,348,935 to Bay. A few others such as U.S. Pat. No. 3,192,817 to Schmidt, No. 4,841,829 to Lehmann, and No. 6,759,584 to Sundstrōm proposed to shift the weight of the instrument in playing from the right-hand thumb to another part of the body of the player. Some of these embodiments are improvements upon the conventional thumbrest, but the main problem of the instrument's weight on the right thumb and right arm is still there.
Other U.S. Patents such as U.S. Pat. No. 5,050,827 to Christie, and No. 3,357,666 to Smith et al proposed to shift the weight of the instrument onto an extendable monopod support which is attached to the instrument to project straight to the floor, The rigid support constrains the instrument to be playable only in a stationary position which restricts in a conspicuous manner the players who naturally would like to express artistic style by moving while playing the instrument and forces their embouchure to be changed from the best formation most of the time.
Another U.S. Pat. No. 5,664,758 to Smith, proposed to shift the weight of the instrument onto an extendable monopod strut device that bears in its lower end on a seating facility upon which the player is seated or on a pouch located on the body of the player in later commercial embodiments. This patent allows only very limited movements of the head and upper body of the players in playing sessions even in the most advanced embodiment. It requires precision assembly of thin telescopic tubings and complicated adjusting mechanisms in all its embodiments and thus is fragile and expensive. It also requires different sizes for different age groups of users.
In spite of several attempts in prior art, no one can provide the complete solution to the problem of relieving the weight on the right-hand thumb of a player in playing one of the musical woodwind instruments that do not have a curved neck near the mouthpiece such as oboes, clarinets, oboes d'amore, English horns, basset clarinets or straight soprano saxophones. This complete solution includes the low cost of ownership, simplicity and non-intrusiveness in use, reliability, durability, fast set up before use, instantaneous adjustment to differences in size and changes in player's natural position and movements during playing, resting or going on stage, and aesthetically blending into the appearance of the instrument. The present invention aims at providing this complete solution without causing any hindrance to the playing of these instruments in other respects.